Member Info for bobocaca

Ya, it is best to not have any expectation at all, we have just entered the tunnel...

SentinelOne has gone down massively in the last few days. Its market cap is fast approaching Darktrace's (those who complained about the market cap gap with US companies, be careful what you wished for). Nasdaq is in free fall, I haven't seen anything like this, wonder when will this stop. The market need some good news tomorrow.

When it fell 7% today, I thought "oh boy, this stock gets panic easily" but the volume was low so that's really just panic selling by retail investors, so I topped up another 10% at around 412p and it did regain much of the lose. When the investors cool down over the weekend, they would realise Darktrace is a B2B company and unlike consumer facing companies, it is less affected by high interest rate. The share price is holding up quite well, like I previously predicted 410p seems to be the support.

I think the SP is likely to be hovering in next 2 months until the next trading update. However, I'm secretly waiting for announcement saying they have won contract from US government....

Unlike most big corporate directors who have spent half their life accumulating wealth, Poppy and CTO are young people who have been getting relatively modest salary from the startup. It makes perfect sense for them to cash in a little to buy a house.

Be more empathy, don't see them like money making machine, they are also human like us who want to provide good life to their family. If they had lost confidence in the company, then the shares they sold would have been above 50%. Therefore, I don't see any red flag here.

oh yes, totally expecting 450p tomorrow.

https://www.newportnewstimes.com/news/newport-buys-ai-cyber-protection/article_6dd15f56-cb3d-11ec-aa53-5bbae1d1ffb1.html

I believe this Newport is in the states. Small contract but this shows Darktrace's traction in America.

https://www.fool.co.uk/2022/05/04/why-this-ai-focused-cybersecurity-company-could-be-a-future-ftse-100-name/

https://www.cmcmarkets.com/en-gb/opto/darktrace-share-price-how-much-upside-is-there

Following the results, Jefferies issued Darktrace with a Buy rating. The investment bank has a 730p price target on the stock and noted that the company had ‘a very balanced quarter, with strong momentum’.

"We think this clearly highlights the operational leverage which is inherent in the business model. Darktrace remains one of our favoured names in the sector," wrote analysts at Jefferies.

Where next for Darktrace’s share price?
The Russian-Ukraine crisis has highlighted a need for cybersecurity and firms offering protection against state-backed hackers, such as Darktrace, could become increasingly important. Then there is the world of white collar work with companies increasing cybersecurity spend.

According to a report from Mordor Intelligence, the global cybersecurity market was valued at $132.94bn in 2021 and will grow at a CAGR of 14.1% between 2022 and 2027. Mordor points to a World Economic Forum survey that shows 87% of executives polled are planning to improve their cyber resilience policies. This has been driven by digital transformation in the workplace triggered by the Covid-19 pandemic, with more businesses operating remotely and depending on cloud services.

Now could be a buying opportunity should Darktrace be able to capitalise on the growing demand for cybersecurity, especially given the falls since October. Although investors will have to decide if Darktrace’s valuation is still too far ahead of the fundamentals.

The 6 analysts offering 12-month price for Darktrace have a median price target of 813.65p, suggesting a 87.3% upside on Friday’s close, as reported by the Financial Times. The overall consensus recommendation is outperform, with one Buy, four Outperform, one Hold, and one Underperform rating.

The main reason is because many people have pulled their money from stock market. Nasdaq is in a mess now. The best performing tech stocks like Microsoft and Apple are down >15% from peak, and the others are worse, ranging from 50% (Meta, Nvidia) to 70% (Netflix). UK is not better, every tech stock are down more than 50% (Oxford Nanopore, Alphawavee, Deliveroo, Wise etc you name it, and that include Darktrace too). Therefore, regardless of what the analysts think the company is worth, or how many customers Darktrace won, the SP won't shoot up any time soon until the market sentiment changes and the money start flowing into the stock market again.

In fact, I expect the SP to go above 425p when US market opens today.

450p is a reasonable SP to expect. When I said quick, the figure I had in mind was 500p.

410p is the new support as other employees are unlikely to sell below this price. On the other hand, the SP won't go up quickly either because of the selling pressure from employees and major holders. The SP should become more stable. Hopefully the stability can attract more institutional investors.

If Poppy and the CTO don't sell their shares now then they won't be do so in the next 3 months. Who knows where the SP will be after 3 months. 10% of 2M shares is about £800K, only enough to buy a decent family house in Cambridge, so this is a reasonable thing to do.

I used to believe the SP will surely go up after the placement but I'm not so sure now. First the timing isn't great given the bloodbath that is happening in Nasdaq now. Then there are lots of shares from non-participating employees that could flow into the market. Like MattTheBrave said, the placement price can give some indication as to where the SP would be heading but it can still go either way ...

Lending, what did you mean by "...Still a little baffling that this was handled in this way..."?

NewKOTB, no, this is the first time she sells, don't confuse her with Angela or Venessa. She is selling less than 10% of her holding. She was only made CEO in recent years and if I remember correctly, her shareholding is little compared to founders like Mike Lynch.

Surprise they did it on Tuesday and 6M is a small number.

The lookup expired on 1st May. RNS says it could be brought forward but in my opinion, the only time that 'respect' the lookup period is after market closes on Friday.

Although being volatile, Darktrace SP is actually quite resilient. It always bounce back quickly, unlike other tech stocks that are constantly going down, many have lost 40% since beginning of the year. As a business, it is also resilient against global economy e.g. oil price, China lockdown, consumer spending etc. The only bad factor here is short seller and big shareholders/employees selling. I think the impending placement price will be the new SP support.

Charles, it is futile to look at short position. The SP fell 23% last week despite with 0% disclosed short positions.
Similarly, it is useless to look at technical analysis unless you're ready to sell at loss to buy back at lower price.

After a year turbulance time with Darktrace, I think I'm starting to get a hang on how to trade. SP has been rising in the last few days, it dropped about 3% towards the end of yesterday. Normally, this would trigger a sell off but not this time. Therefore, it is not IIs doing but merely the retail investors. After market UT has seen good volumes too. My prediction is the SP will hovering between 420-450p next week. I believe many people is waiting to buy once the placement is done, therefore regardless of the actual price drop, the SP should go up immediately and the potential upside is huge. I got out early last week and got back in early this week hence built up a margin to absorb the worst case scenario of -7.5% like previous placements. However, I'm actually more optimistic and think the placement price will be a lot closer to the closing SP, maybe even into positive region.

... but the SP is stable, looks like MM is still buying slowly.